Yes! You Really CAN Change - The Power of Spiritual Training in the Transformation Process, Part 2

It's a fact. One of the leading causes of mental illness is unforgiveness. The power of forgiveness is undeniable. It restores. It heals.

It soothes. The results of unforgiveness are unmistakable. Bitterness, envy, and wrath. A life eaten up by anger and pain. Well, today I want to give you some very practical tools that can help you begin the habit of giving and receiving forgiveness.

I hope you'll stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Pastor Chip Ingram.

I'm Dave Druey. You know, I've heard it said that the heaviest thing a person can carry is a grudge. In this program, Chip wraps up a series, Yes, You Really Can Change, by talking about the poison of bitterness and why forgiveness is so important. With that, let's turn one last time to Ephesians chapter four for part two of Chip's message, The Power of Spiritual Training in the Transformation Process. When you go into training for your speech, you know what you're doing? You're building probably the most important muscle in your body. The most important muscle in your body is your heart.

And there's few things that you can go into training for that will let you know how your heart is doing. Like saying to yourself, you know, Lord, I'm going to use my speech as a mirror. In fact, your word is a mirror to me, and I'm going to use my speech as a mirror so that rather than just some sort of external nice morality Christian, I want to be someone who's pure in heart.

Because according to Jesus, the pure in heart see God and experience God. And I'm going to go into training to be positive. I'm going to be positive in my words in my home and with my roommate and with my friends. I'm going to be positive when people are around. I'm going to be positive for my tone of voice. Now when you go into training on this one, it will be very painful at first because most of us don't think much about our words. Well, how do you do that?

Let me give you a little training apparatus. Practice silence and solitude. Under silence, would you just jot the verse Proverbs 10 19. It says when there are many words, transgression is unavoidable.

This is a funny application. Talk less. Now for some of you, that's not a problem.

For others, I won't mention any names. It's a big problem. Especially if you're a verbal processor. Sometimes you think out loud and as my wife lovingly says to me, Chip, it's okay if you think out loud but could you do it with your tongue not moving? Because sometimes as you're processing out loud, it's very unhelpful for other people. Sometimes in a meeting, what would happen is you would actually look smarter and more, I mean, profound if you just didn't say as much. In fact, you might even try if you have a problem with speaking and you want to get control, you might do the five or 10 second rule. Something comes to your mind, one 1000, two 1000, three 1000, four 1000, five 1000 before you speak.

For some of us, you need to go to 10. But silence. The second is solitude. And what I mean by solitude is I don't have a picture of you, although probably wouldn't hurt most of us to get two or three days away in some retreat center and not speak to anyone for two or three days.

Many of us that would maybe be too much too soon, we'd probably go insane, white jacket, you know. But I will tell you what, if you would say, God, I'm gonna spend solitude with you a half hour or 45 minutes or an hour every day. And since this is the mirror of your word and it is truth, what I'm gonna do, God, is I want you to know that I want my heart to be pure and I will deceive myself and so I'm gonna systematically read through your word and there's lots of good programs and you read and then you close your Bible and you say, Lord, would you help me respond? What do you want to say to me? And then you sit quietly and for some of you, just sit quietly.

You don't need to do this. For some of us that are very, very verbal, then I get out my journal, I begin to write. Lord, would you speak to me? Would you bring to my mind anybody or anything in the last day or so where things have come out of my mouth and sit quietly and I will tell you, if you struggle with like God never answers my prayers, you're gonna get some answers prayers in a hurry. He'll bring vivid pictures to your mind of what you said or how you said it and this will be difficult at first but you'll start experiencing God. When you go into training on your speech and you begin to open his word, you'll start to experience God because he longs for your words to give life. He longs for you to be a conduit of life and hope and building up and education in your home and at work and in your family and your neighborhood.

But most of us don't think much about what we say. So let me encourage you. Go into training. Be positive. Don't wound with your words.

Station number five. We go into training to be forgiving. Be forgiving.

Be the first to say, I'm sorry. Verse 31 he says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other.

Well how? Just as God and Christ also has forgiven you. Would you put a line under those key words, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and then skip down to all malice. Then put a circle around kind. Circle around tender hearted. Circle around forgiving.

In fact grammatically what he's gonna say is stop being bitter and grammatically it's show yourself or demonstrate yourself to be a kind, tender hearted, compassionate, forgiving person. The training command is to be kind. Training objective is relational harmony. I mean that's really what he's talking about is great relationships but the training command is to be kind, tender hearted and forgiving. The negative is stop hateful attitudes and behaviors.

Start showing and demonstrating loving attitudes and behaviors. And so the training actions are to put off hate. Put off hate. I did a little word study on each of these and since we tend to use words loosely let me just go through and tell you what bitterness and anger and I mean he's very particular about these. Bitterness is the long standing resentment that we have. It's a spirit inside of us that refuses to be reconciled with someone. Now by the way you do understand that this is a command in light of someone's hurt you, betrayed you, abused you, wounded you, gossiped about you, slandered you, did you in, right?

You're hurt. I mean that's why you get bitter and that's why you get angry right? It's nursing and anger to keep it warm and brooding over insults and injuries. You have anger fantasies about these people. Wrath here is an outbreak of passion.

It's a picture of you know like a piece of newspaper that you light. This is rage. These are those outbursts that people have. The clamor or anger here is that habitual righteous anger but the sun goes down on it and so although it's righteous and it's just and you're angry pretty soon everything in you is critical about everything and everyone because it doesn't measure up. The clamor is loud talking, brawling, shouting. This is that you know screaming at one another, shouting at one another, injurious names, calling people names. It's the kind of stuff that some of you remember was a part of your first marriage and then even in counseling you said oh well we'll bring it back and I'm sorry and I didn't mean it but see words have the power of life and death.

People blew up and scars were there. Slander we get our word blasphemy from. It's evil speaking.

It's trying to injure someone with their speech and making up untrue statements or shading them or spinning them in a way that when other people hear it it puts another person in a bad light and then finally malice just has the idea of flowing from a heart that desires for the other person to pay. It's just this sort of joy in the demise of another person and what he says is you are not a spiritual green caterpillar anymore. You have come to know the living savior.

You've been in the cocoon of the supernatural community of God's church and put it off. That behavior is off limits for the children of God and you are now a supernatural by his grace butterfly and he's going to say I want you to put on kindness. It means sweetness, gentleness. It has the idea of generosity. It has the focus of thinking of others. It's an outward focus and then he says put on kindness and tender heartedness or literally the word is compassion. It's an interesting word used of Jesus splotna.

In the ancient world they didn't use the heart of the center of affections it was the liver and the bowels. They thought the deepest thinking came from here and so that's this word for this and it's the idea it's more than empathy. This is someone even who has hurt you but you think about where is it they came from and there's something where you see the hurt and the damage and every time this word comes up with Jesus he sees a great multitude and he sees they're like downcast sheep and if you know anything about a downcast sheep is once they roll over too far on their own they cannot roll back without help they will die and he says that's how he saw people and their dysfunction and their sin and their hurt and their patterns and he had compassion on them. Compassion always leads to action to help and so he says put away those things but instead be tender hearted not hard hearted not harsh compassionate and then forgiving it literally means to put it away to release it. Just the way God took your sin and my sin and he put it away and he placed it on Christ so that when Jesus was hanging on the cross your sin and my sin and the sins of the whole world were placed on him and the just wrath of God for your sin and mine was placed on him and he paid for it and so he atoned or his blood covered our sin and whosoever would believe and turn in faith and receive that gift your sins go to his account and his righteousness comes to your account because he's merciful to you and that's what he's saying but your thinking has to change my thinking has to change we put off hate the renewing of our mind is we remember that right relationships take precedent over my rights. See when I'm hurt when you're hurt you know you're thinking don't be bitter I mean be kind don't blow up be tender hearted I mean after what she did after what he did I mean he said he was a Christian he was my business partner he ripped me off after she talked behind my back are you kidding me I will never you know what I'll never Thanksgiving until hell freezes over I'll never be in the same room with that group of people anybody had any of those paying people back so that's not how spiritual butterflies live when you give other people what they don't deserve granted there may be situations where you have to set boundaries but this starts in a real attitude of the heart you will never be more like Jesus you've heard it said love your friends and hate your enemies but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you for what value is it if you do good to them who can do good back to you be merciful like your heavenly father is merciful who causes it to rain on the just and on the unjust and so the training command here is what I call the Matthew 5 24 principle the Matthew 5 24 principle this is the one that this is the one that reminds me that my rights this isn't fair is not as important as right relationships Matthew 5 24 it's this picture of an Old Testament saint in the time of Jesus coming to the altar and he's going to present his offering he may have a pigeon or he may have a calf or a goat and he's making an offering and it says if you come there before God with your offering and there remember your brother has something against you now notice it's not you have something against him now that I could buy right I got this against him I got a bad attitude I ripped him off I'm really mad I'm really angry I really okay Lord I get it I'll go apologize that's not what it says it says if when you're bringing your offering and you know they have something against you and in your mind going something against me are you kidding me it was 92% their fault when they come and apologize we'll get this right what's it say when you know they have something against you leave your offering at the altar go and be reconciled with your brother go own the 8% make every effort as far as it depends on you to be at peace with all men do whatever it takes because the relationship to God is more important than who is right the relationship in your family and some of you have been there you're in strange from family members there's been these breakdowns and pains and hurts and struggles and they're real and it takes someone with maturity who says being fair is not the issue and just because you do this doesn't mean there's reconciliation it doesn't mean people hug it doesn't mean thanksgiving is wonderful but what it means is you have been a child of God you're walking in a manner worthy you're living the way Jesus is his life through you and so you go to them and you make every effort and you'd be surprised what God will do you'd be surprised how healing can occur there's in so many relationships among Christians is this happens there's a divide and they're over here you're over here when their name comes up your stomach right you know kind of gets a little like like this when you see him in a grocery store or someplace or heaven forbid like at the airport when you're traveling and you just realize oh my lands then you try and act like you don't see him then it's too late and then it's and it's like a scab you know why because it's not dealt with you go into training and you go into training to make the relationships what God wants them to be because when I sin and blow it like I do and you do I come to God and I say oh Lord I can't believe I said that I can't believe I did that I know I should have done this but I did that and boy the potential consequences are this and this and this and this oh Jesus will you please forgive me would you please forgive me please be merciful please don't hold me accountable to this would you please forgive me what do I want mercy and yet someone violates me and what I want justice and what Jesus says is I gave you mercy now you need to extend it see this is like this training station and it's the one that many of us don't appreciate at all the abs the abs hold everything together but if there's bitterness in your heart relationships out of sync you know the principle of the entire book of 1st John is if your relationship with God vertically is right then your relationships with people horizontally have to be right so you know you do the ab work you know and you do all this kind of stuff and you ride the bicycle and for some of us you remember junior high sports you put your feet up like this and the coach would say okay keep them up keep them up keep them up and you go no I give them up get them up get them up get them up come on come on come on come on come on right it's really hard but the core connects everything else what relationship do you realize you I need to forgive someone I mean it's hard to have integrity when you know there's this thing out there need to be cleansed of who is coming to your mind right now that you realize I need to make a phone call or have a breakfast or grab a cup of coffee or at least write a letter and as far as it depends on me leave my offering at the altar and I remember about five years ago I tore a disc in my back l4 l5 and I mean I couldn't sit down I couldn't when I rode on planes it was just I mean excruciating had to take three advil and a pain pill and I did injections I did everything nothing worked and a guy said well I can I confuse your back but then you can't do anything I think he said if you can endure the pain in a couple years the body's going to start healing but you got to endure it I tried everything and then this doctor who was a back doctor had my same problem me he gave me the card of his personal trainer he said what I did is I went nuts and he said I got my core so strong that it began to take all the pressure off my back and I didn't go to his trainer but I tried everything and so ladies please don't laugh I learned that Pilates really built your core and I found myself in a room with all women and my wife was gracious to go with me and all of a sudden okay the plank you know diligent you know and here's all these ladies smiling I'm going you know I haven't done anything in two years and what I had to learn was to be diligent and I did Pilates and a Pilates fusion type diet deal and after three four five months my back pain was gone because what happened here and what happened here put the rest of it together and for some of you you need to go into training some with your heart being positive with your words some right those back exercises for others it's kind of a cardio work I want to wrap up our time and wrap up our series by really asking you to do a little thinking and work God is a provider transformation is always by grace your number one cheerleader is living inside you it's the Holy Spirit what we've learned is that you grieve him and I grieve him when words come out of our mouth when we hurt other people this isn't a formula these aren't principles these are not self-help this isn't going to training and do all these things you'll be a better person be more successful all those things may happen but it's completely not the point this is a relationship this is about the living God living inside of you and there's a part of the transformation that no one's going to do for you you've got everything you need his spirit his word his people and there's part of it that's hard to be honest and be angry and be diligent and be positive and be forgiving that's your part you can't do it but he's working and he's creating some of you right now he's creating the will and the desire to do some things that you don't want to do and so here's here's the application number one I want you look at your notes underneath there where are you doing well I mean some of your personalities oh I'm doing terrible I'm terrible on the bike I'm terrible on the back I don't do I need spiritual abs I need I'm a terrible person that is not God's that's not his word to you you need to rejoice and say you know something where was I a year ago or three years ago I've made progress jot it down I'm a lot better with my words I used to have an anger problem wow I remember I forgave so-and-so a couple years ago after what cheer he did write that down be encouraged then second what one area do you need to address don't look at all five of those and go oh yes yes no no no don't try to do all five what's the critical one what's the keystone habit spiritually that when you make progress on this the others will fall into place and then finally you can't do this by yourself none of us can do this and so the last question is who who's gonna help you I just had another injury and I went to a physical therapist on on Friday and I had been doing exercises by myself and I felt very proud of myself and then I went to this physical therapist and he had me do exercises I mean tears put this ball between your knees do this on the back how you doing give me 10 more okay here's this machine three sets he took me through something it was amazing the difference you need someone in your life to help you push to the levels by the grace of God to become the person God died for you to become so that you could demonstrate his love and his light and his holiness as a natural response to the life that comes at you he's done his part now to work out your salvation with fear and trembling Chip will be right back with his application for this message the power of spiritual training in the transformation process you're listening to Living on the Edge and we're wrapping up chip series yes you really can change you know there's so much practical insight in this series based in Ephesians chapter four for people desperate for something in their life to change maybe you're looking to mend a broken relationship or overcome a recurring personal struggle genuine life change is absolutely possible but it takes a lot of work maybe a good way to get some help would be to share this message with a friend and then meet over coffee or jump on zoom to talk about it accountability and community are essential in becoming what God's called us to be to find all the resources for yes you really can change including chips book study guides and small group videos just go to Living on the Edge org or call triple eight three three three six zero zero three again that's Living on the Edge org or call triple eight three three three six zero zero three chip as i listen to you today you're really reminding people that going into training is key to life change what would you say to that person who's still not convinced they have the power to actually do that well dave that's what this whole series is about i've spent my last 30 plus years as a pastor watching helping coaching mentoring and writing to help people understand you don't have to live as a co-dependent or as a private alcoholic or you don't have to live with lust and pretend you don't have it or be a workaholic and looking for meaning and purpose through the things that the world offers and yet the reality is as people have gone to church they read their bible a little bit and they try really hard and that doesn't produce the joy and the freedom and the connection with the holy spirit that God wants them to have the first three chapters of ephesians are what God has said this is what i've already done this is who you really are and so this series is this is how you live it out and my experience dave is people don't understand that they don't know it and so we've put it in the program here i've written a brand new book where they can go through it little by little at their own pace and we have a small group resource i long for people to experience the joy their freedom and the peace how many christians know the great promise i've come to give you life and life to the full and yet they rarely experience it i want them to know it's available but we need to understand what ephesians 4 says and put it in practice well we're pretty excited about the release of the new revised edition of chip's book yes you really can change let me encourage you go to our website livingontheedge.org to pick up your copy of yes you really can change pick one up for yourself maybe get one for a friend and spend some time over coffee encouraging one another on your new journey of life change well now here's chip with a final thought as we close today's program and wrap up the entire series going into training is the key to lasting change the apostle paul after teaching us who we are in christ how to renew our mind he says that personal integrity emotional control financial stewardship positive speech and private attitudes are the key to change from the inside out now here's the deal you could just feel absolutely overwhelmed like most of us do when you look at that list god never dumps the truck when you feel condemned that's the enemy the spirit of god convicts that means he'll be very specific and he'll say you know something for you i want you to talk about going into training on integrity you tell white lies for others it's not an integrity may be an issue but you blow up with your anger or your passive aggressive or for some you know i went into training on not being sarcastic you know out of your mouth those little quips so don't feel like you need to do everything stop right now and say lord you live within me by your holy spirit what's the first step you want me to take in terms of transformation and he'll show you sit quietly and don't try and get it all done but go into training i mean when i taught this i literally set up a gym in our worship center and i went from the you know the bench press to the curls and if you've ever worked out i mean if you go and try and do everything all you do is get sore and you quit you need to go into training on one thing and here's what it requires truth in your mind trust in your heart teammates in your life okay somehow get the truth in your mind whatever you do whether you listen read memorize and then trust in your heart you got to verbalize and talk with people and someone to hold you accountable and then you need a team of people like we all do to go into training god wants and will change your life just before we close i want to thank each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving 100 percent of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help christians really live like christians now if you found chips teaching helpful but you're not yet on the team would you consider doing that today to donate just go to Living on the Edge org tap donate on the app or give us a call at triple eight three three three six zero zero three and let me thank you in advance for whatever the lord leads you to do well until next time for everyone here this is dave druy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge